Are You Part of the Product Development Process? 6 Industry Leaders Share Their Reality

Here's a question that might sting a little: When your brand launches a new product, are you finding out about it at the same time as everyone else? Or worse—are you getting a heads-up just days before launch with a cheerful 'Hey, build a forecast!'?

Today, I'm exploring whether e-commerce and retail media teams are getting their seat at the product development table—and what happens when they do.

I reached out to several brand-side leaders to understand their current involvement in product development and whether they believe they should have a bigger seat at this table. Their responses reveal a mixed picture - some are deeply integrated while others are still fighting for a voice in the process.

If you've ever wondered whether your search trends and customer data could shape what gets developed next, this post has some compelling arguments for your next leadership meeting.

The Execution Afterthought

Alicia Ponzani, e-Commerce Manager at Premier Nutrition, captures a frustration many in the industry will recognize: her team often gets brought in to develop forecasts and a GTM stratagy when an item is about to launch.

While Alicia acknowledges that execution is a huge portion of the job, if she had her druthers her team would contribute earlier in the development phase. The reason? E-commerce teams see critical details that traditional brand and innovation teams might miss.

"When you think about packaging, something might show up really great on shelf in person, but when you're in the e-commerce space, like trying to create ads for items that are very product-level content, it does not show up the same way," Alicia says. "Also, you know, we have access to an unlimited digital shelf, so we just have a lot more competition and competitors."

Her team has access to competitive intelligence and data subscriptions that could inform better product decisions from the start, but they're often treated as "just the execution team" rather than strategic partners.

Full Integration Success

Not everyone is stuck on the sidelines. Jamie Roller, Director of Marketplaces at Dr. Squatch, says her team plays a significant role in the product development process. "The marketplaces team is a pretty big part of the product development process. We are involved in both idea vetting and proposal as well as testing the idea to see if it will work on marketplaces," Jamie says.

This integration has been "integral to our success in product," according to Jamie, because marketplace data provides insights into what works with a huge addressable market. The ability to test and validate product ideas against real marketplace demand gives Dr. Squatch a significant advantage in their product development decisions.

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The Collaborative Intelligence Approach

Neha Malik, whose team focuses heavily on social listening and consumer sentiment analysis, describes a more collaborative approach. "We do a lot of social listening to understand what is the consumer sentiments out there, what is that they're trying to tell us about our product, good, better otherwise that we can learn from, and then make those enhancements accordingly," Neha says.

This collaborative approach across departments enables better decision-making from the start. "It really supports that we make the right decision, whether it's for the product or the packaging, which supports then ultimately from our competitive intelligence and the growth. So we don't have to spend too much time going back and forth and make more intelligent decisions right up front," she says.

The Numbers Behind the Creativity

Kelsey Knight, Chief Commercial Officer at toy brand Slumberkins, brings a unique perspective on how e-commerce expertise enhances product development. "Product development feels very creative. But in direct-to-consumer, whenever there's inventory purchasing in play, it's also very much a numbers game," Kelsey says.

Working closely with one of the founders who heads product development, Kelsey provides critical data including "historical sales data, future revenue forecasting, pricing and margin analysis" - especially important as tariff scenarios impact their industry. She also contributes search trends and consumer survey data to help narrow down which new products to develop and what inventory to replenish.

Search Signals as Product Intelligence

Chris Lowrey, Brand Director at Our Home (parent of brands including Pop Secret, Good Health, and Pop Chips), offers a compelling example of how retail media insights can directly influence product positioning. "You're able to see what consumers are searching for, clicking on and actually buying. And then those signals can really become early indicators for like how we should position our products in the market," Chris says.

He shares a specific success story: "When I worked on a plant-based brand, we noticed protein was driving way more sales than expected through search keywords. And so we were able to pair that insight with some other research and basically decided to redesign our entire artwork to better highlight protein on pack."

The result? "That single change gave us like a really noticeable lift and showed honestly how powerful it is when brand and product development work hand in hand with some things that we can learn from retail media."

The Data Goldmine

Brea Keating, Director of e-Commerce at Wilton, sees massive untapped potential in bringing e-commerce leaders into the product development process. "The data that we're sitting on is data that's being used by these third-party sellers and these marketplace sellers of like, what is the public interested in next?" Brea says.

She argues that e-commerce teams are uniquely positioned to guide innovation: "The people that have the tighter reins on the data and that are really understanding what consumers are buying and why are the ones in the best position to design what's next."

Brea's take: integrating product development from the ecomm team is a significant competitive advantage.

The Bottom Line

The experiences of these leaders reveal a spectrum of integration between e-commerce teams and product development. While some organizations have successfully bridged this gap, others are still treating digital commerce teams as execution-only functions rather than strategic partners with valuable market intelligence.

The brands finding the most success appear to be those recognizing that e-commerce and retail media teams sit on a goldmine of consumer behavior data, competitive intelligence, and market insights that can inform better product decisions from day one. As the digital shelf becomes increasingly competitive, this integration may become less of a nice-to-have and more of a business imperative.